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[music] [sheeping baa-ing]
>>Susan Sheep are hearty animals. They like to eat. They eat on a regular basis. They
will graze all day long. [music]
>>Susan Upper Dublin Township manager and myself have been working together for several
years and he approached me about using farm animals for a vegetative management pilot
project back in the spring, and we talked about different angles and what we were going
to use and we decided to use the sheep. [sheep baa-ing]
>>Susan These are my sheep they live at Sacks Family Farm in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania.
>>Laura The sheep are here to keep the vegetation under control so we don't have to send mowers
out. Mowers have big wheels, so the mower will compact the basin and that makes it perform
less efficiently because you can't infiltrate as easily after you've mowed it a few times.
The sheep on the other hand will have less impact on that. They're natural mowers.
[music] >>Laura I've been looking at the water quality
effects of putting sheep in a basin, since nobody has done extensive research on sheep
in a basin, we don't know anything about water quality effects of putting them there. This
basin is meant to capture the storm water coming off the neighborhoods to keep it from
rushing into the streams so fast and causing damage. So what I came up with was to put
a sampler on the inlet to the basin and on the outlet so i sampled the water coming in
from the neighborhoods, it crosses the basin, and goes out the outlet, I sample the outlet.
I get a before and after. [music]
>>Laura If this takes off then I think more people will be willing to use sheep.
[sheep baa-ing] >>Susan Upper Dublin High School has embraced
the idea of using sheep as well, and using them as an educational tool in their high
school. They have several courtyards and they're currently three sheep in the courtyard that
have been there since the beginning of the school year.
[music] >>Julie This is something that hasn't been
done very many place so I'm very excited that we're able to be open minded and give it a
try. [music]
[sheep baa-ing] >>Susan The sheep have done exactly what we
thought they were going to do and this is just another example of the different ways
that we're partnering and doing research and just working with our local communities to
educate them and educate ourselves. >>Laura I think it's just part of Temple's
continuing commitment to our community. We do it not only downtown on main campus but
our here in the suburbs. [sheep baa-ing]
[music fades out]